


Games For Long Car Journeys

by lilsmartass



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Family, Gen, Humour, Wee!chesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 13:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilsmartass/pseuds/lilsmartass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean keeps his little brother occupied during a long car journey. Dean 10, Sam 6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own the SPN characters, though I’d love a Winchester for my birthday.   
> Warning/Spoilers: None, extreme silliness  
> Genre: family, humour, wee!chester

**Games for Long Car Journeys**

The traffic jam alone, in which they had been stuck for the past three hours, was enough to raise John’s blood pressure and that was without the sudden cessation in the whispering that had been coming from the back seat. He cast a sideways glance at Bobby who was riding in the shotgun seat and saw from his not quite raised eyebrow and apprehensively quirked mouth that he was thinking the exact thing he was, silence meant something was wrong.

John quickly ran through all the worst things either of his sons could say right now: _I need a drink/snack/bathroom break_ – none of which were possible in this traffic, _where do babies come from_ – because, just dear God, not again...His thoughts cut off as a small foot connected hard with his back through the chair and the high, whining voice of a bored Sammy Winchester rent the silence, “It’s _mine_ Deeeean!”

Instinct born of long habit had John reaching forward to fiddle with the radio and turn up the AC/DC tape currently playing. He was just as bored as the boys were, but Dean would give into Sam, he always did and they’d go back to their game and, heaven willing, the traffic would thin out soon and they could stop for lunch.

“No moron, it’s mine.”

 _Don’t call your brother a moron_ , the words were on the tip of John’s tongue, but he bit his lip to keep them in and looked stead-fastedly through the window. Starting a row with his stubborn six year old and bull headed ten year old was really not how he wanted to he wanted to spend the rest of this interminable drive. He caught Bobby glancing in the rear view mirror as a small tussle broke out, but when he caught his eye his friend only shrugged, indicating he had no idea what they were squabbling over either.

“Give it back!”

“Stop it!”

“Stop kicking me!”

“It’s _mine_! You said I could be the unicorn commander.”

“Didn’t!”

“Did!”

“Didn’t!”

“Did too!”

“Did not!”

“Did _toooooo_!”

Knowing he had only seconds before one or the other of them wailed _daaaadddd_ and he had to spend the next however-long-this-took listening to them whinge at one another about telling tales, he briefly contemplated the old parental standby of threatening to turn the car around. It would be an empty threat though, and both of them would know it. The road was blocked on either side, no way to turn around, and even were that not the case, it wasn’t as though they were heading for somewhere two children wanted to go, just yet another shithole motel.

“You _said_! Dean you said! You said _I_ could be the unicorn commander.”

“You’d be a terrible unicorn commander.”

There was just enough supercilious, older brother smirk to Dean’s voice to guarantee sending his volatile brother over the edge. John’s hunter trained reflexes caught the movement in the mirror as Sam’s head whipped forward, seeking reinforcements from the front of the car. He opened his mouth wide, seconds before it happened, John could already hear the wail: _Daaaaaaadddd!_

Bobby was looking at him. John’s fingers tightened their grip infinitesimally on the steering wheel. He knew what Bobby thought of his parenting abilities, and listening to the snipe fest that might go on for the rest of the week if Sam was allowed to tattle would do nothing but cement his opinion. He had to act, and he had to act now.

“That’s enough,” he said, hardening his tone to a stern bark, “stop it the pair of you. I’m the damn unicorn commander.”

There was a beat of silence while John processed what he had just said and fought to keep the blush off his features and his flinty gaze intact. Trying not to make what was, in retrospect, obviously a monumental blunder worse. Bobby’s lips twitched suspiciously, though John suspected the effort he was making not to giggle like a school-girl was not to save John’s reputation, but his own. He liked being thought of as a grumpy curmudgeon.

Sam, all traces of frustration wiped from his face, turned with unmitigated awe to his brother. “Wow Dean, you were right. I never thought we’d get him to say it,” he said, in the all-too-audible stage whisper of a child.

For the first time, Dean met John’s eyes in the mirror. He was obviously trying to look innocent and contrite, but the wicked glint to his eyes betrayed him.

“Dean?” John growled, command and question all in one.

The threatening smirk only widened, and Dean gave an insouciant shrug. “You said to keep Sammy entertained dad.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

 “You should ask,” Dean’s voice hissed.

The badly masked laughter in his son’s voice caught John’s attention, but with the ease of long practice he gave no indication of it, even as his brain raced wildly to try and come up with a way to head this obvious, if undefined, problem off at the pass.

“Dad?” Sam piped up.

“Yes Sammy,” John answered, noting with a heavy heart both Dean and Bobby’s smirks out of the corner of his eye, “What’s up?”

“Where do babies come from?”

Bobby gave a small choked noise in the seat next to him, and the venomous glare John had been about to aim at Dean changed trajectory and headed towards the other hunter instead. It was an expression guaranteed to force obedience on either of his children, but it only made Bobby’s amusement grow. “Yeah John,” he drawled, “Where do babies come from?”

For a second, John thought Bobby’s attempt to join in with embarrassing him had backfired spectacularly as Sam’s attention swung to the other adult. “Don’t you _know_?” the six year old asked incredulously. “I thought you knew everything.”

“Not everything Sammy,” he said, most of his attention still on John’s slightly reddened face, “And I’ve never had a baby.”

Sam nodded, his little face serious, apparently willing to accept that at face value. “Dad?” he asked again.

John met Dean’s eyes in the mirror, studying his eldest son’s face. He was reasonably sure that Dean had the sketchiest knowledge of the answer to this question, l probably not enough to call his old man down if John fed Sam some bullshit line. “Well Sammy,” he prevaricated, “When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much an angel gives them a baby.”

“Like Jesus?” Sam questioned.

Just the thought of likening either of the hellions in the back of the Impala to the person Jim called Saviour made him want to giggle and scream all at once but he just gave a short nod and said, “sort of.”

Sam pondered for a moment, “But Jesus didn’t have a daddy,” he pointed out with the logic of a child.

“No, but Jesus was special. The principle is the same.”

“What’s principle?”

“The idea. It’s the same kind of thing.”

“So an angel just gives you a baby when you want one.”

Relieved, John nodded again.

“And it goes in the mommy’s tummy,” Dean chimed in.

Sam’s gaze swivelled to Dean’s face and back to the back of John’s head. “Why in a tummy? That’s a stupid place to put a baby.”

“Well...” John struggled to think of an answer that would satisfy his too curious child and simultaneously extract him from this conversation, “the baby needs to grow and it grows in a mommy’s tummy so it’s safe and warm.”

Sam shook his head. “But how does it eat in a tummy? Does it eat the food the mommy already ate?” His face contracted in the expression of horror and glee common to boys who had thought of something gross. “Does the baby eat puke?”

Considering for a moment the merits of starting a conversation about puke with his six year old versus this conversation, John threw a desperate look at Bobby. He’d never hear the end of it, but at this point he’d live with that if it made this conversation end. Bobby simply looked back, eyebrow raised, waiting for John’s response. Sparing another glare for him, John said, “No Sammy, it doesn’t eat puke. The baby’s in an egg, and the egg grows inside the mommy and a baby comes out.”

There was a pause. John could see the question forming in his son’s eyes. _No no no, don’t please don’t,_ “Hey, is that an ice cream truck?” he said, pointing haphazardly out of the window and swerving into the rest stop they were passing. Dean looked marginally interested, but Sam didn’t even flinch at the crappiest distraction since John let that shapeshifter in Manhattan hand him his ass while Bobby ran back to the Impala for the silver dagger they’d forgotten to bring with them.

“Out of where?” Sammy predictably demanded.

John couldn’t disguise his groan, though Bobby made a valiant attempt to mask his snigger as a cough. Well, everything else had failed. It was time to try lying. “Out of the bellybutton,” he said, calm and certain.

Sam looked down, prodding his bellybutton experimentally as though he half expected a baby to spring out of it and fall into his lap. “But why- ” he started.

John had had enough. He hadn’t missed Mary, or wished he were hunting alone and not subject to an audience, so much in months. “Right, come on boys. Lunch-time, bathroom break, and I don’t know about you, but I need out of this car for awhile. Want some quarters for the arcade?”

Dean gave John a look which told him his pitiful diversion techniques wouldn’t work that much longer, but took the proffered quarters and Sam’s hand to head for the arcade without comment. “It’s OK,” John heard his voice as the two set off across the parking lot, “Next time we stop in a town, I’ll get you a book Sammy. They do all sorts of books about babies.”

John put his head in his hands and rested against the side of the car, more drained by the conversation he had just endured than any hunt, or sleepless night researching. A sound to his left was the prelude to a cutting remark. “Not a word Singer, not one fucking word, or I’ll make sure you never put a baby in anyone’s tummy!”

   


	3. Chapter 3

“But why?”

Dean stifled a sigh and glanced hopefully at the back of his dad’s head. John however, was doing a credible impression of obliviousness, clearly having no intention of getting dragged into an endless round of Sammy-questions-the-Universe. Of course, Dean _could_ involve him anyway, but honestly, it wasn’t worth the inevitable PT later. “I don’t _know_ Sammy,” he said instead, trying valiantly not to get frustrated. It wasn’t Sam’s fault they were stuck in a car on the most boring piece of road ever. I mean, you could only play I-spy so many times before you’d used up every possible permutation of grass, cloud, sky, field and every car part they could think of. There wasn’t even anyone else on the road.

“But Dean _why_ is he called Spiderman when he’s not even a proper spider? He doesn’t have eight legs or anything!”

Dean breathed through his nose and reminded himself _yet again_ that Sammy was just a little kid and that he himself had started this off by showing Sammy his new comic. He should never have gotten into this at all. He should have brushed off Sammy’s original question – _how come Spiderman shoots web out of his hands when real spiders shoot it out of their butts?_ – long before it came to this. Instead he’d described web cartridges, and was now stuck in the Circular Conversation of Doom. Hopefully, he rummaged through the side pocket of his duffle, wondering if there would be something in there to distract Sammy from his quest to assume ultimate knowledge of spiders. His hand closed over the shiny-slick feel of a comic book and he pulled it out. Maybe he could get Sam to read it and that would give him peace for at least fifteen minutes.

It was an Avengers one, and for a second Dean glanced at the cover, smirking slightly to himself as inspiration stuck. “Hey Sammy?” he said, cutting off yet another sentence that began _but why?_ “How would you take down the Hulk if we were hunting him?”

In the front seat, John twitched slightly, and turned the music down a fraction, paying closer attention to them now. This was the first time they had talked about hunting so openly since Sam had read the journal at Christmas.

Sam looks speechless for a moment, then his brow furrows as he considers the conundrum. Dean watches him intently, and out of the corner of his eye, he catches dad doing the same in the mirror. He isn’t sure exactly what Sam knows about hunting. Since Christmas, dad’s been a lot less careful about when and where he tells Dean odd bits of lore, and he read the journal (or at least, what is legible of dad’s untidy scrawl), and Sam has an uncanny memory for the details of what he’s read, but, aside from stepping up on the physical training dad had always made them do, they had largely ignored the fact that now Sammy knew monsters existed. As far as Dean knows dad hasn’t taught Sam anything, hell, Sam’s barely included in the lectures on salt and silver dad gives him. Probably because Sam makes friends with everyone and can’t keep his mouth shut. An eight year old who believes in ghosts and monsters isn’t too remarkable; an eight year old who can describe in graphic detail how to go about finding and killing one is.

“Well...Bruce Banner changes into the Hulk right? So he must be some kind of shape-shifter so silver,” Sam said confidently after a second.

Dean felt an eyebrow rise at the sheer impeccable logic of that, but responded anyway, “Bullets don’t hurt the Hulk.”

Sam shrugged, “Bet no one’s tried silver. No one in the Avengers _knows_ about shape shifters.” John couldn’t help the snort of amusement at the tone of his youngest’s voice. It was the wrong thing to do. Eyes flashing Sam snapped his gaze forward. “Why are you laughing at me? I’m _right_!”

“Sammy I didn’t say you weren’t, it was just...funny the way you said it.”

“Oh,” there was a pause, “Why?” For a valiant second, John ignored him, but Sammy simply never stood for that when he had a question. “Why was it funny daddy?” he repeated insistently.

Dean glanced sideways at his little brother and all of his focussed attention now pointing squarely at their father. Mission accomplished, he smirked to himself and curled into the corner of his seat for a nap.  

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: A prank is pulled in the Impala. Dean 10, Sam 6.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: Gen
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t own the SPN characters, though I’d love a Winchester for my birthday.
> 
> Warning/Spoilers: None, extreme silliness
> 
> Genre: family, humour, wee!chester
> 
> Wordcount: 796

**Games for Long Car Journeys 4**

 

 “Shit,” Bobby said, hurling his duffel into the trunk and turning back towards the motel. “I’ve left my book.”

John did not look impressed. “Get in the damn car Singer, I don’t have time for this.”

Honestly, he should probably have known better. At the arch tone, Bobby’s expression turned mulish. Dean quickly pushed Sammy towards the back doors of the Impala, the last thing this argument needed was Sammy’s two cents on the importance of reading, or the importance of packing the night before. “Well since you’re not in charge of me Winchester, I think I’ll just go and get it.” Bobby started sauntering across the asphalt, taking his sweet time.

John growled hi irritation and wrenched open the driver’s side door. “I will leave without you,” he yelled. If anything all the threat did was make him slow down.

“Daddy,” Sammy started, completely oblivious to the tension emanating from the front of the car, as John threw himself into the seat. Dean hastily shushed him.

“Singer?!” John roared. The parking lot remained stubbornly silent. Dean suspected that Bobby was sitting in the room, possibly reading another few pages of the book. “That’s it,” John muttered under his breath, thumb moving in a soothing, rhythmic motion over the Impala’s steering wheel. “We’re going. He knows where we’re headed. He can catch up. I’m not wasting my time with this.”

He put his foot on the pedal, the engine revving loudly, stating John’s intentions. The AC came on full blast with the engine and the whole front of the Impala was filled with swirling flakes of silver glitter. John made a disgusted, furious _sound_ and flailed blindly at the front of the car, turning off the air con. For almost ten whole seconds the Winchester family sat in silence, watching the final flakes settle. Sammy broke the tension with a delighted giggle.

John turned slowly. The scowl he was wearing scored deep lines in his face and the silver in his hair and beard made him look like an old man. Despite himself, Dean’s lips twitched. “Which one of you thought this was a good idea?”

The silence was deafening.

John had stopped yelling now, now he was the intense quiet he wore when he was _furious._ “Dean?”

“I- ” Dean only wished he could take credit, the prank was genius, even if the poor Impala had been caught in the crossfire, but if it hadn’t been him...it must have been Sammy, and Sammy simply wouldn’t take his punishment as fair payment for the sight of dad sat in a glitter storm. He’d moan and bitch and make the whole the situation worse, and then dad might start wondering why Dean hadn’t been watching him closely enough to stop him and just...no. He flicked his lips into a smile, not hard, the sunlight was shining through the windscreen and dad and the seat and dashboard were shining. He looked like an angel. “Pretty good huh?”

“This,” John waved a hand, another small puff of glitter rose into the air, “this is not pretty good.”

“Wow,” Bobby’s drawled as he opened the door, his eyes were dancing. “That went better than I expected.”

“You?” Dean and John demanded simultaneously. John shot Dean a look which told him they’d be having a conversation about this later. Dean pretended not to notice.

“Of course me idjit. Where d’you think they could get $16 of silver glitter?”

The anger slowly bled out of John’s form. He looked wounded, betrayed. “ _Why_?”

Bobby snorted, “Turn off the puppy dog look Winchester, it doesn’t work on me.” He regarded John critically. “You look like a unicorn shat on you.”

“That’s because he’s the unicorn commander,” Sammy piped up brightly.

Dean choked on a laugh. Bobby didn’t bother to try and hide his. “He’s right.”

John heaved a sigh. “Can we just go?” he muttered sulkily.

“I don’t know if I want to sit on this and end up with glittery shit on my ass.”

“Get. In. The. Damn. Car.” John bit out around a smile with too many teeth.

Bobby raised an eyebrow and hesitated just long enough to make it clear that getting in the damn car was what he wanted to do anyway. “Can’t disobey the unicorn commander,” he smirked.

John shot him a deeply unimpressed look and turned the car out of the parking lot. “You realise you’re cleaning the car out.”

“You realise if you don’t turn the AC on in here the humidity will make everything stick to the car.”

“When this hunt is done, I’m going it alone.”  


End file.
